Soni Razdan: Weird that we didn’t have managers back then

Razdan, who stars in Call My Agent: Bollywood, recounts how actors struggled earlier in absence of talent managers
Uma Ramasubramanian (MID-DAY; November 2, 2021)

Even as it offers a humorous take on four talent managers, Call My Agent: Bollywood proves that agents play a crucial role in an artiste’s success story. Soni Razdan, who plays a key role in the Netflix series, admits the film industry would have benefitted from talent managers in the ’80s and ’90s — a period when she was in the prime of her career.

The senior actor recounts, “It’s weird that we didn’t have managers back then. If you got one, he would be an [odd] person, wearing white pants and a shirt. I could not relate to [them]. There were no casting directors either. So, how was an actor to find out about a role? We didn’t have Instagram to promote ourselves. Today, I feel lucky to have a management team that helps me and pushes me to do better.”

The Shaad Ali-directed series, an adaptation of the popular French series of the same name, sees Rajat Kapoor, Aahana Kumra, Ayush Mehra and Razdan’s characters hustling every day for their celebrity clients while struggling with their personal lives.

For a country obsessed with the Hindi film industry, Razdan believes a show centred on it was long overdue. “Our film industry is bigger than the French film industry, and we have a huge talent pool. The Bollywood version of the show has its own flavour; it is about our stars and their problems.”